Conspiracy theories are all the rage nowadays, I have a theory that because we are taught conspiracies about the nature of our world and our nation from a young age in public school that primes us to use conspiracy theories to fill in gaps when we're trying to explain the world to ourselves and others.
So what do I mean by this? here's an example:
A big conspiracy theory that is popular amongst the masses is that a lot if not all of the mass shootings in recent memory, let's say since the 1960-something Texas tower shooter, are actually perpetrated by the FBI or CIA or lizard people if you go deep enough into 4chan. The purpose of these mass shootings being to get the American public to renounce their gun rights so that the government can finally swoop in and totally take over everything whereas they could not before because all of the guns that people own.
Now you can't actually understand this massively complex problem without knowing some history so get ready to get learnt.
gun ownership has been a big thing in the United States since before we were the United States. Guns help a lot when you are settling on land that is already being used by native Americans. Guns are just way better than tomahawks or bows and arrows.
That's the core of our obsession with guns in this country, the genocide of native Americans. Also, catching escaped slaves guns was a big part of the early laws that mandated the man of the house own a rifle.
fast forward to today where we have wealth inequality not seen since the time of the Pharaohs of Egypt. We are in a day and age where we are more isolated from each other than ever before. And I'm not just talking out of my ass, as usual when I make these posts they are backs by the facts and between a quarter and a half of people who go to doctors in America, their biggest ailment is loneliness.
Because capitalism demands wealth accumulation above all else which goes back into that wealthy quality thing I mentioned earlier, the way the 24-hour media cycle covers Mass shooters glorifies either intentionally or not, these monsters.
So you have a population of poor alienated lonely people who have access to guns because our history has made it so, add in the total lack of healthcare and the promise of glorification if you go out with a bang, and it's no surprise that we have 30,000 gun deaths a year with an obscene number of mass shootings.
There's no easy answer to this other than we have to start thinking collectively in a way that puts human needs above the profits of corporations.
All human needs, not just white landowning men.
So it's a lot easier to fit a conspiracy theory into this particular slot rather than understanding the big picture and that is why I think Americans are so in love with conspiracy theories across the board right now, but especially when it comes to mass shootings.
Basically if we had better education I think we would see that great diminishing of conspiracy theories.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk I'm going back to reading my book.
Addendum: so the conspiracy is not that the government is perpetuating mass shootings to ultimately take away American's guns, that conspiracy is that it's incredibly profitable for gun manufacturers to keep everything the way it is right now. I had a throwaway line in the original post where I said the only way to fix this problem is to start thinking in a way that puts human needs above profits this is what I was referring to. The actual conspiracy is the gun manufacturers lobbying Congress to not Acts and pass gun reform.
No comments:
Post a Comment